Specifically though not exclusively the invention is usefully applied in the food preserves industry for chopping and subsequently separating the juice or pulp of fruit and vegetables from the skins and peels, seeds and other waste present in the product. The invention particularly relates to cold-processing operations.
Devices of this type have been well-known in the prior art for some time (for example such as the device described in European Patent EP 721744 belonging to the same applicant), and an infeeding archimedes screw, also of known type, into which the produce to be processed is introduced. The produce is sent by the screw to a triturator group which performs a first cutting operation, whence the triturate is introduced into the refiner where the pulp or juice extraction process is completed, i.e. the refinement process is concluded.
The machines described can be separated one from another and connected with conduits for transport of the product from one to another, or they can be connected coaxially one to another so as to have a continuous flow of product from the archimedes screw to the refiner. This latter solution, which enables a considerable time saving between the first cut of the produce and the completion of the refining process, is what the present invention concerns.
The use of a chopping group in combination with a refiner is adopted when hard or large-size produce is processed cold, or with a brief pre-cooking operation only; the produce is, for example, apples, pears or the like; these are first chopped and the triturate is introduced into the refiner which transforms it into a purxc3xa9e of pulp and juice which is sent on for further processing. This is due to the fact that these types of produce are not directly treatable with acceptable results by normal refiners.
In known devices the product is pushed, generally by an archimedes screw, internally of the triturator, which carries out a first cutting operation to reduce the produce into small pieces; subsequently, thanks to the axial pushing action of the archimedes screw, the product is forced to pass through a sieve which further reduces the size of the pieces of produce which are then sent on to the refiner. Other parts of the produce apart from the pulp are chopped down into small pieces, for example seeds, stalks etc., and the product arriving from the refiner often contains these crushed xe2x80x9cextraneous materialsxe2x80x9d which can jeopardise the quality of the finished product.
Other drawbacks of known devices are represented by the low productivity of the triturators and the difficulty in regulating them, necessary when changing type of product processed, which is generally obtained by changing the rotation speed of the cutters, which also leads to a change in the operating mode of the refiner.
The main aim of the present invention is to obviate the above-mentioned drawbacks in the prior art by providing a device, having high productivity levels, which reduces to a minimum the breaking-up of produce elements other than pulp. An advantage of the invention is that it allows easy and rapid regulation of the triturator, which if so desired can be independent of the refiner operation. A further advantage of the invention is that necessary cleaning and maintenance operations can be carried out simply and rapidly.
The device for triturating and extracting juice or pulp from food produce is used in particular in the food preserves industry for triturating and subsequently separating the juice or pulp from fruit or vegetables, in particular in a cold-working process. The device comprises a refiner of known type provided with a rotating shaft having blades rotating internally of a sieve contained in an external casing; a triturator group receives a produce to be processed from an infeeder archimedes screw and introduces the produce into the refiner; the triturator group comprises a fixed cylindrical cage, fixed to a casing of the archimedes screw and also fixed to the external casing of the refiner, is arranged coaxially to these machines, and exhibits apertures and a cutting group which rotates with the refiner and which is provided with frontally-acting cutters, and which is arranged internally of the cylindrical cage with the cutters facing the archimedes screw and being provided with radial blades arranged downstream of the cutters.